‘Far more typical of Murakami’s output’ – Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami

A new book by Haruki Murakami has become a bit like a new Martin Amis – those people who like him quietly get excited, those people who don’t start to rumble and carry on. There are those who dismiss Murakami because he is a popular novelist (and after all, how can a popular novelist be taken seriously?!?), those who dismiss him because they think he’s a bit New Agey (a bit Paulo Coehlo, a bit Banana Yoshimoto), those who find his interest in such things as dreams and ‘temporal spaces’ to be annoying. There are those who find his prose a bit stilted, and wonder about whether it’s actually Murakami or the translator. There are those, also, who just don’t get it, who just don’t see what the point of his books are. There is nothing in Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage likely to dissuade the haters…